NOTES for Joh 13:1-20
Today's reading presents an episode well known to every reader of the Gospel: Jesus washing His disciples' feet. It should be noted that washing the feet of guests entering a house was common practice in the ancient East. This is hardly surprising: footwear in warm countries was usually open, and in those days people did not sit at table but lay or reclined on a special kind of couch. Washing one's feet before a meal was therefore regarded as good manners, just like washing one's hands. A household slave assigned to the task normally did this work, but on special occasions the master of the house himself might wash the feet of especially distinguished guests, thereby showing them particular respect. Jesus here evidently takes on work usually entrusted to slaves (verses 1–5). And the evangelist regards His action as a sign of the fullness of love characteristic of the Kingdom (verse 1). The contrast between Jesus' position within the apostolic community and the task He took upon Himself was so striking that Peter protested, wishing to turn an ordinary act of hygiene into a kind of ritual washing. This apparently explains his request that Jesus wash not only his feet but also his hands and head (verses 6–9). The apostle probably thought such a ritual washing more fitting for Jesus than simple slave labour, since it implied a spiritual content that, to Peter, ordinary foot-washing seemed to lack. But Jesus evidently sees the situation quite differently. He does not regard a slave's work as something low or unspiritual. He says: I have just shown you an example to follow, if you really are My disciples (verses 12–17). Apparently, the point is not to try to imitate Jesus' actions in some way. It is to be ready to do for our neighbour precisely what they need at that moment. For in the Kingdom there is no work that is ‘exalted’ or ‘lowly’, ‘spiritual’ or ‘unspiritual’. Everything is determined not by the nature of the work but by one's attitude towards the person for whose sake it is done. Then the distinction between ‘exalted’ and ‘lowly’ disappears: love puts all deeds and ministries on an equal footing. Only purely functional differences remain, which are not really so important spiritually. Yet this attitude towards every task is possible only when the one performing it remains in the Kingdom. It is no accident that the evangelist saw in what Jesus did for His disciples an expression of the fullness of love possible only in the Kingdom. Jesus' words calling the disciples to follow His example then become clearer. He calls them to live in the Kingdom, every day and every hour—not at some indefinite future time, but here and now.